Hello

Catrat

Wanted to practice drawing a duo interacting. Also angle of the head. I don’t know if I achieved it, foreshortening is hard, needs practice. I think I drew over his face so many times.

I’ll post some drawings from my ‘sketch book’ for a while. Somehow my sketchbook always ends up like this, I can’t really keep things rough. Somehow I always think if someone opens my sketchbook I will be Meccha embarrassed.

Time to start posting again! Well, many things happened… I’ll keep my post simple and often if I can help it X-0…!

I made these for my daughter’s 3rd birthday. She was literally obsessed with Gabby from the beginning of last summer and we watched the 11 seasons at the time on repeat. Her Mercat stuffy I happen to buy some months earlier thrifting in Canada went with her everywhere, and when it wasn’t Gabby on Netflix it was Gabby on YouTube. So my thought process was like this…”I think she would like to have all of the stuffys for her birthday in December”.. but she already took the one everywhere. There’s like 10 of the Gabbycats. She would want to bring all of them and that would be a royal pain in my a$#! So if I make miniature versions she can just pop them in a bag and call it a day.

It sounded easy honestly, no problemo Knock ‘em out during a weekend (lol)!! Yeah…no! Each one took about three hours. They have so much darn detail that I wasn’t aware of before just looking at them surface level. It honestly enlightened me a bit about character design. It’s all about the little details that make each character unique and lovable. Starting with no template just a basic shape of the main colour…they were a very trust the process kind of project. With some of them I didn’t know if I would make the leap from retarded* (can I say that?!) to recognizable.

In the end I decided to sew them on to my old Girl Scout (I only had two badges anyway X-0) sash since one of her favourite episode was the “Kitty Rangers” one. It turned out cute and she loved it (I think)!

Fast forward to present day… She’s totally over Gabby X-D >__<‘!!! What?! Yeah.

I went all out Gabby’s Dollhouse for her birthday and Christmas and she loved it. Then she learned how to use the IPad properly and realize that there’s an infinite amount of shows one click click click click (that’s how fast she changes them!) away. Ah, evolution! When I asked her how could you throw away Gabby like that this was her response “ ;-P “. <——-exactly that face!! No words!! What does it mean?! I don’t know… (it kinda seems like oops in anime :-/).

What she’s mostly into now is Bluey. The nerve though! From being totally team cat to dog overnight! Well…that’s how it goes. I’ll be listening to Burgerdog for a little while longer.

*Some lady in the bank yesterday was calling the machine retarded so I guess its allowed lol

I guess I had no plans of polishing this one. When I went to resize the image after colouring, it was already so tiny *sobs*!

Not the season for it either we're waaay past halloween lol.

Not much to say since I talked about this image already....I wanted text in the background to fill a space in the top corner which looked empty. But I didn't know what to write. Something like a chant would be fitting I thought since the character is a witch/ demon but I don't want to mess with real voodoo shii(take)! I also didn't want to write something cheesy.

(Fun story, in me and my husband's early conversations after meeting,I told him I'm into LOA. He thought I was into voodoo, lol.)

I put the text box and the filler text just worked lol! Call me lazy but yeah I'm very happy with how it fills the background. It even overlapped the face a bit and I was able to work it in.

This might be my last post for the year. I'll try to draw something quick to befit the season but idk I'm a VBP (very busy person), kinda... maybe.

Finally finished this drawing! I was going to post it last night as I finished because the excitement of it being done was raw. Alas, somehow I could not formulate my words to my usual....I don't know what to call it (there's a word to describe what I mean though)! I finished the linework for this drawing last January if you can believe lol! With my time constraint and other problems (tablet, computer, program, indecisiveness, haha!) I'm only satisfied now.

Afternoon Vanish

Kinda don't feel in the flow of writing right now but I wanted to post this. I had an idea to do weekly drawings like how I used to do back in the day with illustration Fridays. That was a great site (even though my drawing was never selected lol) for motivation and community with other artist. I think I joined another similar one but somehow meh...anyway yes!

My idea is I use AI to create the theme or prompt and I have a week to draw out my interpretation of it. After my drawing is complete I use an ai art creation app and type in the same theme to see the AI's interpretation of it. Akila VS AI lol!! Of course the AI's going to be better right (because I'm not even one of those super artist or wtevr) but it's interesting to see the different rendition and what's more creative. Of course you can do it with friends too but err I kinda don't....have friends lol. Or maybe with art communities online I find myself comparing when I see others art and I end up never posting anything? This way...it's me against me and if I can make the weekly deadline (which is my problem) I win.

The image is simple I started it when the kids (not my kids lol) got off school for summer. So I was imagining someone daydreaming on the last days of school dreaming for summer but also for me personally this time of day in the afternoon...I like it but I don't like it. It looks beautiful but night is coming. I don't hate the night but it feels sad somewhat. Ah has the vibe of the Japanese movie 'Taste of tea'! If you watch it you'll know what I'm trying to say.

Hey, hi!

I feel like I never get the chance to sit down and fully type out my thoughts like this. Somehow the kids are attracted to my laptop like moths to a flame (or a hungry animal to a t bone steak!). As soon as I open it up they jump on it! I don't like typing on my phone because I feel like I can't flow as well. I'll make this short because I have to sleep.

The drawing above took me kind of long to finish and posting now I realize the face is a bit twisted lol. When i'm lining traditional art I like to be very precise and intentional with every line. The thickness of one line can change the whole vibe of a drawing. So I like to sit down and do every stroke carefully but I don't get that.

I ran it through a photoshop filter so that I could colour it digitally but im not sure if I like it. It needs rescanning.... I think that's the source of the problem...tabun. I did it on so call watercolour paper and tried to add a bit of gray shading bit when i added it, instead of spreading evenly it kind of absorbed a bit in some areas and did a kind of wax resist effect in other areas. Maybe its because the sketchbook is old.

When I drew this drawing I wanted to draw a character with big lower boobs lol! Yes that was my thought at the time. I love drawing characters because I can get creative with the outfit. I watched 'My oni girl'( great play on words lol) when it first came out on netflix of course because, I admit it looked so cute hahaha! There was actually a character in there that reminded me of my character. I was like, 'Oh'! Yeah, the movie was not that great in the end. There were many things and scenes that reminded me of spirited away and ....mmmm the message was kind of like ponyo and Suzume which i didn't like. Aaah, I could explain but this message is going too long already and if it has to go to drafts that's the nail in the coffin and it will be in there for at least another few months.

Signing off now. I really want to start posting consistently....

The frog tongue is a bit of a stretch (haha...) for the 'Y'.

Hello, hello! I’m back from a very loooong hiatus. (One which not even I could have seen!). Actually I remember why I lost the rhythm of posting in a fairly often manner. I got a job to design a mascot for a company so I wanted to write about the process but I didn’t want to post any image before they finalized it. Ah yes! Before typing this i kinda forgot (I did just say i remembered right? It’s complicated!) because I didn’t plan to talk about that today and I was going to post another image .Wow time flies!! I was planning on abandoning this blog and heading over to the ever popular instagram, but I don’t know…I can’t abandon my first offspring. As someone once said, “I love my baebae”! Okay, so the formula I’ve come up with is that i will continue to blog here as usual and post the same image on instagram with the link to this blog if anyone is interested in reading my neuronical nonsense (things my brain made up, yah)….

on to the image! Not much to say about it now since it’s been such a long time. The company wanted a lion mascot with different outfits (including underwear so they can add clothing if they wanted) and expressions. I think they wanted more street type clothing with big jewelry but somehow I didn't know what to draw even though i'm interested in fashion im not fashionable. Maybe that’s what they didn’t like about it. Ah well….I can dress him as i like now. Here’s a few of the images.

I experimented a lot with this one in illustrator. I know I wanted it to be more texturized (and was using my drawing with the bullfighter as inspiration) but forgot I took that one into photoshop... Wanted to get a similar look but keep it in illustrator. I went with my basic design tactic but those solid lines really didn’t work for the tattoos. Used thinner lines and made it really rough like sketching then varied the consistency of the lines. With the female figure on the upper arm I even used a gradient on the line. The design on the tank top was purely accidental but I loved it. Lowered opacity, different blending options, brushes... I learned how to create a scatter brush for the beard as well, ha! I’m so pleased with the bottom half but there’s something that the upper half is lacking? I can’t put my finger on it though.

Been working on this while I was posting the other stuff. It’s a portrait I did for a friend I met online. He actually has a YouTube channel and talks about how bad Japanese society treats tattoos in one video. He also has another video that is basically a tattoo tour. Some of the tattoos are not accurate but from how he explains them I did my interpretation of it. Quite crazy that one, but lovable! Check out his page.

https://youtu.be/FPkhXe61tTg

Elli - The kind caretaker

I just realized that in HM64 she wasn’t a nurse but worked in the bakery? Somehow not remembering that at all, wasn’t she always a nurse?? Ah well.. she did take care of her granny. If anyone ask she’s picking up Nana’s meds! I knew the outfit was a bit different in where the colours are but I didn’t put 1 +1 together.

I went back to the eye and nose facial style of the first one to wrap it up. I didn’t have much problems with the drawing, although I did save it prematurely only to discover that I forgot to draw her teeth.

I had fun with this series! If I’m doing another one I want to tackle making some watercolours for the short stories in the wonderfully weird book ‘The lonely bodybuilder ‘ by Yukiko Motoya. You guys should check it out!

I will continue to post art as usual but most likely not everyday, haha. I will share something soon but that’s all for now.

Ann - The tomboy

Not much to say here today. Tried a more dramatic pose with this one. I’m thinking that I will practice sketching more dynamic poses so that I can improve on it. Actually there’s a lot that I can improve on (drawing and with life in general) but I always say I don’t have time. I was watching this YouTube video earlier about doing micro habits and it really makes sense. Just thinking about doing stuff sometimes puts me off and then you use the time excuse. It’s sooo easy to lay in bed on a Sunday and do nothing ~. Definitely I’ll start my micro habits....tomorrow ^ ^’.

https://youtu.be/aHDvEfiSipo

Here’s the link for anyone who going to make steps to improve their life starting Monday!

Karen - The feisty vintner’s daughter

This one took me the longest to get right and I thought it was going to be the easiest because the outfit is so darn simple!

I don’t have a photo of the sketch at my fingertips this red hot minute but I think it was flawed from the beginning and I inked it already. After uploading it to the computer I had to adjust that... Ah, I changed the draping of the hair from the sketch a bit as well but the hair in its final stage I think it looks good. It has more of a background than the others because it was so boring I had to spice it up. I still think it has some anatomy issues but it’s okay, it’s okay..!? I love the colour scheme. If I had to change something I would try making the grapes up top more...organic in shape.

Mary - The shy librarian

Not much problems creating this one actually. This was my favorite of the bachelorettes to draw and in the game.